Social media was not impressed by the new Charizard EX. Comparing new with old we see identical HP stats, yet a significant difference in their attacks. Old Charizard’s Crimson Storm deals 200 damage for 4 energy, while consuming 2 energy after each attack. As we already know the ideal pairing is with Moltres EX, who can ramp energy onto Charizard to enable an unstoppable Crimson Storm sweep.

The new Charizard is clearly not meant to go with Moltres, as it’s ramping energy on its own via its Stoke attack, which will add 3 fire energy onto him so that it can fire off a Steam Artillery dealing 150 damage for 5 energy. The reason why Charizard didn’t leave a strong first impression is that in order to ramp, he himself needs to attack first. Which means no matter what... Charizard will have to tank a hit before being able to deal damage himself.

The longer the game goes the harder it is to set up a Charizard EX, as the opponent will have the ability to hit Charizard with a massive hit after you stoke. You easily end up thinking that the new Charizard EX is just a strictly worse version of the old one, until you realize how to properly play him.

The new Charizard is opposite to the old.

What I mean by this is that instead of building it up slowly in the bench behind your lead, you want to lead with Charmander every single time. This is because you want to evolve into Charizard EX as fast as possible. The correct way to play the new Charizard EX is to design a deck that goes all in on him, one that aims to consistently build up 2 Charizards, and nothing else.

Today’s deck showcases how you really play the new Charizard EX. We go all in on Charizard with the aim to evolve him by turn 3, every single time. We’re able to do this thanks to the new trainer card, Iono. With Iono we can send our entire hand back to the deck and draw the same amount of cards all over again. Combining a full set of Iono with pokemon communication allows this kind of strategy to be incredibly consistent, for the first time in Pokemon Pocket’s history.

The rest of the deck consists of trainer cards to support Charizard. 2 copies of Potion, one copy of Giant Cape and Pokemon Center Lady provide us with the means to heal our Charizard from early game aggression, to keep him outside of range from our opponent’s high end attacks. Red allows our Charizard to counter Giant Cape, enabling our Steam Artillery to one hit KO the likes of Arceus, Darkrai, Palkia and Mewtwo even after they’ve equipped a giant cape. Sabrina can both buy us time in the early game and seal the win after we’ve managed to KO an opposing EX pokemon, guaranteeing our following Steam Artillery will net us that final kill.

Thanks to Iono we can focus our entire game plan around developing double Charizard, forcing our opponent to power through 2 titans in order to win.

This deck went undefeated for me on stream, and really showcases how Iono has opened the door for stage 2 evolution strategies to be far more consistent than they’ve ever been. Make no mistake, this is the best new Charizard EX deck.